Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Touko didn't know what she could do. What she should do.

She put a pillow over her head, but at least Bianca was still asleep. Or better at pretending to be than she was at identifying it.

She didn't know who to ask. There was no way she could ask subtly enough about a theoretical situation to not be obvious. Normally she would ask her mother, her teacher, but she didn't want to hear from them, because if they knew what to do, they'd have fixed things. She didn't want to hear that they were useless or complicit and she wasn't sure which would be worse.

Cheren was okay even if he never got it. He was just like that, really smart about everything except people. She couldn't get mad at him for not understanding. It was just how Cheren was.

Bianca has whispered to her while her mother was cutting the cake that she had wished on her ten candles for a Pokémon journey where she could get away from everything and find out who she was.

Touko rolled over on her side of Bianca's bed. It was bright pink even in the dark and felt like it was going to drown her. A plush cage. She shouldn't treat it metaphorically. It was just a bed.

She couldn't hear Bianca's breathing. There was shouting downstairs. Couldn't he keep it down tonight, having reluctantly let Touko sleep over for Bianca's birthday? Shouldn't he be charming in public or something? Touko wasn't allowed to sleep over here usually or to have Bianca over to her house but she wasn't worth courting or putting on a front for. Put she never had told anyone, had she?

A lamp broke loudly. Must have fallen down from the vibrations from the yelling and the stomping. Definitely. And no other reason.

When I get a Pokémon, I'll make sure she was one too. Then I'll help her run away and she'll never have to go back to Nuvema Town again.

How would she do? Bianca hadn't even been allowed to go the day their class took a fieldtrip to Striaton City. But no, that made her sound "overprotective" too. She would set Bianca free, because she was her friend and it was her wish.

Chapter Text

Touko stubbornly kept her back to N and peered downward frantically for Team Plasma, even if she couldn’t make out their silly costumes from this high. He was just babbling something about gears and plantonic solids anyways.

“Listen. This is important.”

Damn it. Every shoujo manga she’d ever read told her riding a Ferris wheel together was a romantic cliché.

“You said we were going to look for--”

“I’m the king of Team Plasma.”

Well fuck me sideways. She had not seen that coming. She vaguely recalled the Sages mentioning a king and maybe she kept running into them in the same town around the same time, but she’d had no idea N was related to Team Plasma at all. Had she known, she would not be here.

Ferris wheel cars proved to be made to keep anyone from jumping out. Her Tranquill could totally have caught her if she’d managed it.

“What do you want?” She resisted the urge to cross her arms, flexing her fists in preparation to react to danger.

“Do you think it’s right to kidnap Pokémon from their homes and force them to fight each other in gladiatorial games for your own glory? To command their absolute obedience with Pokéballs and badges? Why do I have rights and agency and they don’t? Why do people treat me like a person and my family like animals?

“What do Pokémon gain from training? Food? Skills at League-rules fighting? Is a ‘good trainer’ only cared for because better that than a bad trainer or being without a slave master for a protector in a society where they can only be chattel?”

An amusement park employee opened the door to yell at them for shaking the car. She pushed past him to get out, out!, her mind whirling.

What did her Pokémon really think of her? They were her friends, weren’t they? She loved them and they responded to her feelings, right? She wasn’t N--she couldn’t understand them and how well could they really understand her? What did they want and what was even possible for them with society at large being what it was?

There were Team Plasma members outside, but N waved them off, saying he would occupy her so they could escape. She growled an objection to that. (They called him “sire.” What dark cave had this strange, fanatical cult emerged from?) She wanted to hit something with her own hands and they terrorized old men and made little girls cry.

Then there was N, talking too quickly with his strange Asperger’s mannerisms and his lack of understanding of personal space. Touko refused to take a step back, still.

“I have a future I’ve see that I need to prevent. I will defeat the Champion and with the Great Dragon remake the world to my will. Touko! I’m counting on you to meet me there.”

But it was Cheren who wanted to be Champion, not her, she thought dumbly.

He stepped even closer to her, his usually rapidly flitting gaze for once looking intently and directly into her eyes.

“You badly socialized freak! I can’t believe you kissed me!”

“Come after me and choose what the world you desire is.”

“You bastard!” she yelled after his retreating back. He could disappear as fast as a Sigilyph using Whirlwind. “Did he just ask me to be his rival or his queen?”

She didn’t even know what she wanted him to have meant or which she wanted to be. Did she want to kick his ass or hear his message, overthrow his “reign” or ask him to talk to her Pokémon for her? Was this all a false dichotomy and she could choose neither or both?

She had become a trainer because her friends had wanted to leave town. She had travelled and gotten gym badges because it was something to do, but while she was enjoying her journey, she had never thought further than the next city.

Cheren wanted to become Champion, Bianca wanted to find herself, Touko wanted…

She wanted to catch up to N. The police could handle Team Plasma better than one girl could and it was their job. She didn’t believe in whatever strange magic rituals they were unearthing to fool the gullible, but she couldn’t let this lie. She wanted, for herself rather than for Bianca or Cheren or anyone else.

Rival or Queen. She’d know her own will by the time she saw N again.

Chapter Text

"Sorry," Touko felt the need to say. "Alder was kind of a dick to you. I don't believe what he said."

"It's alright. We can't all be bleeding hearts like Bianca. That's why we have you, the ego to balance my superego and her id. Not that Freudian psychology is the vogue anywhere but the media."

As usual she'd only understood half of what Cheren was talking about, but that was irrelevant. "It was pretty dumb to ask about after becoming Champion. We're just kids. I wish I had goals as well defined as you do, drive like you. I can hardly think of what I'm going to have for breakfast tomorrow, let alone what I'll do next year or between now and being in a nursing home." Maybe as far as getting to N she could imagine, but no further.

"I want my Pokémon to be strong. I get them that way through the most efficient training strategies. I won't apologize for that. I'd rather be unpopular with people who talk a lot about 'heart' than flounder around denying my nature."

Cheren solved problems by thinking about them very hard and acting decisively how he had deemed best, always had, and he battled with the same single-minded intensity and firm convictions about which strategies were the "strongest." Cheren had certainty, about what he wanted, about Team Plasma.

Bianca fumbled around in battle, making her Pokémon do most of the work as she concentrated on them more than her opponent. Touko would have thrown her last fight with her to have avoided seeing the lack of self-confidence she did afterwards, but it was a fact that not all trainers were battlers and that was okay. Bianca had stood up to her father's attempts to drag or guilt her back home (though beneath the part of her that had trusted her friend, who had the will to run away in the first place, to have gained confidence, the likewise grown Touko had been thinking that if he laid a hand on Bianca by the gods she would hospitalize him in the middle of the street). Even Bianca's mother had shown signs of a spine, conspiring with Touko and Cheren's mothers to ease their leaving (She shouldn't be so disparaging to the woman; after all, what had she ever done back then?)

Touko was a natural. No doubt about it. She just knew what to do, in training, in battle. Didn't know why, but she knew. Humility aside, in her very limited inexperience, she was obviously shaping up to be one hell of a trainer once she got more of that experience. The only thing that worried her was her insight, her intuition failing her one day and having no groundwork of understanding to fall back on, so she admired Cheren. Cheren had answers, Bianca knew how to handle questions, and Touko had doubt.

"If you hold my hand while we walk across the bridge, you get your bleeding-heart points for the day. One hundred percent of your recommended daily value."

He smiled. "Deal."

Chapter Text

Dear Diary,

Today was the worst day ever. I hate Joltiks so much. I never want to see another one again in my life. Not because they're spiders or anything, I kill (or kindly return to the wild) bugs for Bianca all the time. Because they were goddamn everywhere. All day, all the way through Chargestone Cave I could not go three steps without hitting one of them or a web or something. Hate hate hate.

I hate all of Chargestone Cave. It should just sink into the ground. It was like having one hand on a Vander Graff generator and the other rubbing amber against a Liepard the entire time I was down there. It's not like I got hit by lightning and died or something, but as everyone knows, static shocks hurt and I was getting them all over my body every few seconds. My hair is ruined forever. I should just cut it all off.

At least I'm not conflicted anymore about the depths of my hatred for Team Plasma. That total bastard N, stalking me. If he weren't already a criminal, I'd get a restraining order out on him. Then he has me kidnapped by ninjas. Fucking NINJAS. They don't even exist outside of fiction. I don't know what kind of sick game he's playing, but I can't believe I let myself forget the kind of dangerous and unstable person he really is just because it was my first kiss.

I don't even understand Team Plasma's aims. One of them told me "It's bad for ordinary trainers like you to use Pokémon. It's good for us members of Team Plasma to use Pokémon." I tried to explain to her that this blatant, underlying hypocrisy undermines anything they might be saying. They are an organization of humans who use and abuse Pokémon in whatever the same ways they say the rest of us do are. If Pokémon were their leaders or equals, then they'd have a message.

N's different from the rest of them. He's a trainer but not a trainer. Pokémon literally crawl out of the woodwork to throw themselves into fights on his behalf. Wild Pokémon just don't do that, act like trained Pokémon. Is he really their king then? Do my Pokémon not want to be fighting him?

He's wrong, though. He says humans have an inherent need to organize, to dominate anything different, to build cities and civilizations and technology, and Pokémon, who aren't like that, will always be the easily conquered aboriginal savages. For Pokémon to be free and reach their full potential, humans must be kept away from them. He expressed such guilt about being a trainer himself, but said violence was the only way to change the League and only by combining human words and strategies and Pokémon power can they overcome Pokémon-armed opposition.

It's not right. Humans want to be with Pokémon. Some Pokémon must want to be with humans, like those who love him. N may be unique compared to anyone else I've ever met, but not inherently so. He might think of himself as a human-shaped Pokémon, but physically I think he's just a normal human. There has to be a better way. Better means and an ends where everyone can be happy.

He did say one thing right, though. I wouldn't argue with the good professor when she gives a bullshit conciliatory answer, because that's just what grown-ups do, but noncommittal isn't always right. There are lots of people with lots of mutually exclusive points of view and perceptions. But some of them are wrong.

Cheren waxes poetry about philosophy books he's read on arguments on moral relativity. I'm not eloquent or well-thought out or anything, but I definitely think it only goes so far. Everyone might be right and just from their own personal or cultural viewpoint, but some of them are just wrong, like Bianca's father, and they need to be stopped from hurting anyone else. That's why there are laws and police. Live and let live has to be mutual.

I'll stop Team Plasma from hurting humans or Pokémon. I'll put my fist in N's face, because I hate him. I'll keep anyone from getting in the way of Bianca and Cheren's dreams. Of course they can both become stronger; N was wrong about her giving up.

Or something. That sounds too epic for trying to get tangles out of hair frizzing into the stratosphere and aching all over like I got trampled by a herd of Zebstrika. As soon as I got out of there, I dropped my bag in a puddle in the rain, which is why I'm starting a new diary.

Fuck my life.

-Touko

Chapter Text

No one could get a rise out of her quite like N. She'd screamed when he'd jumped out at her at the gym door and now she was crying, for some reason. He acted utterly oblivious to why her eyes might be leaking, not even staring as that and the rain washed away the lingering stain on her face from the nose bleed she'd gotten from being fired from a cannon into a wall.

"Trainers compete for pointless acclaim, Pokémon get hurt. Why don't you understand?" His eyes were teary as well, so maybe he did understand her.

'What kind of people are Team Plasma?' Skyla had asked her. 'Bad people,' she'd said.

She curled a hand in her Zebstrika's thick fur, but wouldn't look away from N to bury her face in it. She was strong and he was dangerous, but why did he sometimes have to say things that weren't crazy?

"Zebstrika," he called for his attention, then told her, "I'm going to talk to your Pokémon. I was raised by them since I was a baby, so I understand them better than humans."

He'd said things hinting at that before, but that was impossible, wasn't it? she thought as he talked to her Zebstrika with more affection than she'd heard from him before. Feral children were brain-damaged, mute, and sickly all their short lives even if rescued, everyone knew that. N was weird but nothing like that. His identifying with Pokémon and considering himself one of them and not a human were just part of some misanthropic self-hatred complex, as Cheren would say, probably from being bullied as a child for being crazy and turning to Pokémon to project his imaginary friends on.

But what would he say her Pokémon said? Was he right? Did they hate her? She'd wanted to ask him that question, but…

"This Zebstrika trusts you for some reason. That's good," he encouraged her as she started to cry harder for some reason. Touko was still scared but relieved and still confused. Had she wanted him to say something else, maybe so she could pretend he was only a liar? It was so much easier to condemn Team Plasma when he wasn't here. "If everyone human and Pokémon were like you, I could stop my crusade to liberate Pokémon from people who just use them."

He made most trainers sound like Bianca's father. She didn't know how to handle that, because that would be something that needed stopped, but most people weren't like that.

"Ghetsis is going to find me the Light Stone and the Dark Stone. I'll use them to awaken the legendary Dragon and be the hero of legend, its friend. It will grant my wish for the future and change the world."

"Are you sure you can trust Ghetsis? He might be using you for his own ends." He seemed fishy to her, arrogantly talking about his plans then belatedly adding comments about the king onto them. Cheren thought he was a ghost-hologram or something. "Your people are being led to act in ways I don't think you would want."

He shook his head, shook himself all over like a Herdier, sending water everywhere in the rain. "My vision is to change the world without using force. Forcing people makes them resist, and it's their innocent Pokémon who suffer the consequences of their tantrums. You understand. Pokémon are not just tools for people to use!"

She threw an arm over Zebstrika's neck. "I understand. But I can't let you get away with your methods."

"I'm so sorry, you know, that Pokémon and trainers who care about one another, like your Pokémon and you, will be separated. It breaks my heart."

She believed him. He was bad at facial expression and changing his voice to express emotions, but this issue had his whole being poured into it and there was something broken in his eyes and despair deep in his tone.

"You may be resigned to it, but I'm not. There's got to be a better way. Coexistence is possible. Hurting humans is wrong too. I'm going to find that way and I'll oppose you to do it."

"That's why I have you. That's why I value you more than anyone who's just a Team Plasma member. Do it. Show me your vision. I want to believe in you. You are my worth opponent, someone who can strike a different path towards the same goal." He kissed her again and she could taste his tears, her tears, soft against his lips and she kissed him back like it was the only thing holding her up. "That's why I love you."

And then he was gone and she was left with her tears being washed away by the rain. "But I don't know. I don't know what to do or how. I can't change the world. I'm just one kid."

Chapter Text

What was strength?

The ability to do what he wanted, perhaps. What Cheren wanted was to beat the Champion. Simple. Perhaps strength was a measurement that only had meaning subjectively-strong enough for x.

If he had strength, then he could do whatever it was he decided to do next.

But was his particular type of strength conducive to the things he would want? Being a strong Pokémon trainer would be useless if he wanted to be, say, an aerospace engineer, except for the momentary prestige of fame. Most adults stopped battling once they stopped travelling, except if they were in the League or as a weekend thing.

He could join the League. He could research Pokémon like Professor Juniper, he was smart enough. He could work in any of the industries supporting trainers, like his father, the boisterous but brilliant Pokéball engineer.

So he wanted to be with Pokémon forever from the sound of it and if he was smart enough, which he was, and strong enough, any number of doors would open for him. Touko was right about the Champion being full of shit.

Without his Pokémon, he was smart, but was he strong? Strong in body no, beyond being able to put up with the annoyances of travel. But he had never understood the martial artists he saw training in the mountains. The strength a human body was capable of was insignificant compared to that one gained by harnessing the strength of Pokémon.

The furthest his interest in the subject went was training his body to ignore the annoyances and weaknesses of the flesh, but that wasn't much of a long-term or primary goal. He didn't want to be a monk and technology was such that he couldn't become a cyborg yet.

What did people talk about, emotional strength? That just seemed to mean not crying a lot, the way people used it.

What other kinds of strength were there? His Servine had taken to rolling his eyes every time he saw he had gotten stuck ruminating on the question again.

"Am I strong?" he asked Touko. He trusted her to have a more balanced view of reason and emotion. "Me, not my Pokémon."

"Of course. You have… confidence, conviction, ambition, will. That's a kind of strength too."

Cheren agreed, but added, "Ambition tends to get a bad rep."

"Screw 'em."

Professor Juniper always said opposing viewpoints had value, but he too had never seen any reason to believe the people who were wrong.

Touko stood out with him as he thought, gazing at the dark clouds instead of going back inside the Pokémon Center. It wasn't like the stars were visible with the rain falling on the awning over their heads.

"Did you want to ask me something?" Bianca always said he was slow on the uptake.

She shook her head ruefully. "No. I already know your answers to the political questions I'm thinking about. But… a guy just confessed to me."

He wondered how or if those things had anything to do with each other, but suspected they didn't and she'd been trying to distract herself with the former from the latter. He wasn't surprised she'd chosen to tell him, not Bianca, because Bianca would freak and squee loudly enough to be heard back home and Touko didn't look deliriously happy.

"Congratulations," he ventured. "I suppose you haven't given an answer yet?"

He wasn't sure how he felt about it. It had always been the three of them. Would a fourth wheel ruin that? Not that he had imagined himself the hero of a harem anime or anything. Besides, then he would have to choose between Touko and Bianca, the story would go, and they were such good friends it would be bizarre to see them setting themselves up as rivals for his affection. (Though he had secretly wondered if Touko's protective tomboy and Bianca's flighty girly-girl routines were part of a romantic schoolgirl friendship.)

Not that he cared about romance in the least. It was stupid. It was just surprising that it would be Touko. Bianca did whatever it was girls did to make themselves pretty. Touko's primping went as far as basic hygiene and she got ready as fast as he did in the morning. She'd gotten taller over their journey but was still as lean and tomboyish as ever.

"It's complicated. There are so many ways for it to not work out and only one I can think of for it to, even if I wanted it to. I'd have to defeat him totally and utterly, usurp his dreams, and change him to my ideals."

"I've heard it said that trying to change the other person is a terrible basis for a relationship."

"I know. If he were to defeat me completely, all our previous arguments would become moot, but I don't think I'd join him: I would never forgive him. But I think that he wants to be changed, maybe, he says, if I were strong enough."

"You're strong too, Touko."

Chapter Text

Excerpt from an inscription in the Resort Desert:

Our seers say this: a time will come when we are enslaved, when the world is corrupt, and we will call out for deliverance.

Our hero will return to us then, the young king that stands at the limits of our vision, the one anointed by fate.

In Zekrom's shadow, he will be the bright lord that shines through the mist. He is he that doubts, he that denies, he whose wrath would shatter this world.

In Reshiram's brightness, he shall be the king that sits upon his golden throne. He is he that believes, he that commands, he who lays the foundation of our faith.

In our own time we have seen the hero ascend to heaven and have heard of his glory. He has saved our world. I saw the messiah standing before me with no words but "Hope." You have shown us wonder and given us your love.

The king has come! To lighten our feet. To save us from the dark. Who could ever doubt? We have faith.

Let me walk with you when I'm lost in the wild, ever upward. I know you always lead me to another Eden.

And in this time all shall bless the name of the young king, the anointed one, and peace shall be upon man and mon.

Translator's note: Ancient Unovan is a gender-neutral language. The masculine forms were used here, but the prophesized hero in question could as easily be a queen as a king.

Chapter Text

Alder was okay. No, a good guy. He and Cheren had gotten off to a rocky start but even they were on good terms now.

Touko had to admit she was a sucker for sob stories. His reaction to his beloved Pokémon's death was probably overly melodramatic and unhealthy and irresponsible and had probably pissed a bunch of people off, but she couldn't but respond to that level of feeling. And people said Bianca was the emotional one.

Touko smiled. She'd been having this reoccurring daydream of Bianca as a model/professor in Lolita-style and a very frilly lab coat. She would loved to have shared it with Bianca had it been about anyone else.

"Any parting words?" Alder asked her.

Be careful. On one hand, he was much stronger than she was, but on the other, the theory of narrative causality made her certain that she, not he, would be having the final confrontation with Team Plasma. She feared treachery or underhandedness, but it would be too easily dismissed to tell someone twice her age to beware unspecified trickery.

Ghetsis, she was sure, was up to no good. He was obviously manipulating N to be his puppet-king, while trying to ensure that he commanded the only body with Pokémon-power left. N fought her because they were rivals, but Ghetsis fought her because they were enemies. She shivered to think that the only reason she'd been able to fight off the ninja assassins so far was that Ghetsis considered her only a sidekick compared to Alder or Brycen and such. To free N from Ghetsis was a goal she could pursue without hesitation.

Though she couldn't discount the thought that Alder could be defeated by sheer might. She'd never seen the Champion fight, but he'd only seen the Great Dragon in the distance. She had been there, clinging to the worn edges of a staircase moments from thunderous collapse, and had been forced to her knees by power not even directed at her.

Ghetsis wanted to use that power to manipulate public opinion by fear. He was an orator--he thought in terms of changing minds with words and manipulating emotions. Changing what people wanted was a strong power itself, but what a waste of this one. She could see in the Dragon (Dragons, the weight of the stone in her pocket reminded her) the power to raise continents and drown mountains, to change the very fabric of reality. N, she thought, understood, but was waiting for her.

"If everyone released their Pokémon and destroyed their Pokéballs, what would the Pokémon do? Would it be that bad? My mom's Pokémon have been with her for thirty years. She couldn't make them leave if she wanted to."

"That's our secret backup plan. It's difficult sometimes. Some Pokémon would leave and the world would be better off that they were able to. Some would even try to take revenge, because there are bad people out there who they might think deserve it. But if we live up to our ideals, Team Plasma has no power over us. We oppose them for forcefully separating Pokémon and people against their wills. Does that answer your question, Touko?"

Being on first-name basis with the Champion of Unova. She's never dreamed as much back when she left Nuvema. "Yes, thank you." She wondered at the scale of things, N's words about compulsions from Pokéballs and badges warring with her upbringing that being friends with her Pokémon was the ideal to strive for and her assumption that all other trainers were brought up the same way.

"You're my second. I'm counting on you." He ruffled her ponytail affectionately. "You know, after this is over, I'm going to rethink my duties and responsibilities as Champion. I could use people like you and your friend Cheren as protégés. I'll make sure to keep Marshal from getting too jealous."

She blushed. She could see the possibility of developing a mentor-crush on him, if one totally without intent of seriousness. She was already way too invested in the friendships and maybe-romances that she had and meant anything by. "That would be an honor."

"Or perhaps I'll be honored for the famed Hero of Unova to deem to look me up on her Xtransceiver. Wish me luck anyway." Alder grinned at her as he flew away.

"Good luck," Touko said to the wind.

Chapter Text

Victory Road, the way to the Elite Four, was a place of ceremony. Grandiose, but fittingly so and necessarily so. Few got this far and fewer still went further.

Yet hers was an awe without fear. All her life she had imagined how hard it would be to challenge for the title of Pokémon Master. Now she saw that the title was simply a formality, a sign for those just meeting her. Her dreams no longer stopped at that point. Being awarded the title meant being strong enough for everything that would come after, all those responsibilities.

She had traveled Unova from south to north, seen sights familiar to many and those hidden for millennia. She had stood in the presence of the legendary Dragon and had its split-twin in her own bag. So a little ceremony and some architecture wasn't going to impress her too much.

Her memories were enough to humble her, though. The people she'd met were amazing. Cilan, Chili, and Cress, refined, arrogant, and clever. Lenora, someone she could admire as feisty and brilliant but never be. Burgh, surprisingly competent for someone so camp. Elesa, someone she didn't understand in the least but Bianca did. Clay, caustic and leather-tough. She had stepped into the abyss and been caught by the winds before she'd even considered if that was what she was supposed to do because Skyla would never let her fall (completely separately from letting her get fired face-first into a wall from a cannon). Brycen, who could hold off dozens of guys at once and pwn ninjas. Drayden and Iris, who told her she'd gotten involved in a war without end, fought in every generation, but that they believed in her.

She'd already had a private sendoff from Bianca and Cheren. They were older, stronger, wiser. Bianca could still smile. She's always admired that about her. Oddly, she had long since realized that it wasn't that Bianca's Pokémon were weaker than hers. Bianca simply lacked the proper disposition: she didn't want to see her Pokémon or any others hurt and she had no desire to prove her superiority to another trainer. Cheren's too were as strong as hers, but in her mind he taught them all the wrong moves, had them fight in the ways he thought was the empirically-proved best from his training manuals without matching his strategies to the strengths and weaknesses to his particular Pokémon or those of the opponent he was facing.

If she had worried about coming down with a mentor crush on Alder, Cheren had it worse, having just found someone he considered worthy of admiration for the first time. There had been, from Bianca, many hugs and tears, and a kiss that didn't mean commitment but did mean she had places to go back to, possibilities that did exist. Cheren had looked awkward and clasped her shoulder and she knew meant by it about the same thing. She'd seen enough signs of the apocalypse without him giving in to Bianca's urgings to do more than kiss her on both cheeks like his mother did to everyone.

Yet she was set apart. Touko didn't believe in destiny, just accidents, but the fact remained that while she was part of the-three-of-them, she was also part of her-and-N, Team Plasma and the stuff of legends. She wasn't better or stronger in any way that mattered, but she could go where they couldn't, because that was the path of her dream.

Gears turned and another door open, wind ruffling her hair from the movement of the colossal moments many times her height. She was dwarfed by the scale of it, Gulliver in Brobdingnag. This was the might of the Pokémon League: we have very good hydraulics. If she hadn't had to sit through one of Cheren's research papers on the subject back in school, Touko might have thought moving anything that heavy would take a miracle.

She's since seen miracles. She walked forward.

Chapter Text

So Touko was surprised by how easily she defeated the Elite Four, but knew she shouldn't be. This was not the struggle her life had been leading up to, merely the prelude. That was to come.

"Alder! N!" she yelled between pants as she ran up countless stairs to reach the Champion. Who'd built this damn thing, someone who wanted the challenger to be too tired out to fight at the top?

Normally two challengers wouldn't have been allowed to enter at once, but the entrance had been discretely left open for her. She wasn't really a challenger to the Champion today anyway.

"You've lost, Champion. You let yourself get soft, falter in your conviction."

With nothing to do but run, Touko could wonder. What made some people's dreams stronger than others? Didn't everyone think they were the hero of the story, have something they wanted with their whole heart if tested, even if it was just to live? Was conviction alone enough or would the strongest of dreams still fall to superior might?

No matter. With the other Dragon, she'd have equal might and her conviction was stronger—N wanted to be persuaded, while she only wanted to win.

"Alder!" He was in bad shape, burnt, bruised, and bleeding and pressed into a broken stone pillar by N's elbow at his throat. "N, stop!"

"Touko, I'm so glad to see you, and with the Stone." He smiled innocently despite the layer of ash and specks of blood upon him and seemed to loose all interest in Alder. "Everything's finally ready for our ultimate duel. But I think the power to revolutionize the world demands a castle. Watch," he said with child-like glee.

Touko had thought herself immune to awe at architecture by that point, but then she'd never seen anything like the goliath castle rising from beneath the shaking and crumbling earth and making the League look like a doll house. Bloody hell. She might have played at being prince to Bianca's princess, but this was a bit much.

"I will end Pokémon slavery and keep humans from where they could hurt Pokémon."

N rose up on the back of the Dragon, but Touko stayed standing in its presence. Was it the Stone in her possession giving her that power this time? Was knowing what to expect? Alder didn't.

It was unlikely he could stand under his own power in general, and Touko rushed to catch him. Someone got there before her--Cheren, running up from behind her.

"Alder!" he cried, practically colliding with the man to get a shoulder under him. "Are you alright? I mean, of course you're hurt, are you severely injured and in need of medical attention? Do your Pokémon need healed? I'm sorry I'm late. Do you-"

"Cheren, I'll be fine. I'm not dying." Alder smiled a little, though there was blood staining his teeth from a cut on his forehead dripping down his cheek and long hair.

Cheren kissed him, clumsily and impulsively. "I was worried," he said in embarrassment and tried to pull away from the man, somewhat complicated by the fact he was the only thing holding him up and had his other hand tangled in his hair.

Alder got one hand on his shoulder and one behind his neck to stop him and pulled Cheren back in for a much longer, lingering kiss. Alder was obviously rather good at this from how Cheren's eyes rolled back and he ended up clinging to him as much as the other way around.

Touko found herself unable to blink let alone look away. She wasn't even sure what Alder meant by it. She wasn't even worried about how much older he was, because she'd always thought of Cheren as the mature one well beyond their years who knew his own mind. For all she knew Alder thought of this as part of his responsibilities as Champion to the mental state of any person in Unova.

"Touko." She started. Right, she remembered why she was there. "Go. Convince him that some Pokémon can make some people happy and some people can make some Pokémon happy."

"Remember how we got here, everything that's happened since Professor Juniper brought these Pokémon to your house. We've gotten stronger not just as trainers but as people, but we did it because we were trainers.

She nodded and ran up, up, up.

Chapter Text

Would the surreality never end? Gym leaders had rushed to her aid by Bianca's word and now she was being preened and cooed over by N's harem. How did she always manage the wrong room to duck into?

It was helpful that they were terrifyingly beautiful women. Competing against them for looks would be as futile as trying to outshine the sun, so why should she try? Touko was not beautiful, but she was strong.

She thought them weak but pitied them for their weakness rather than despised it. They were too weak to take action; they could comfort N but not change him or stand as equal to him. And people mistakenly believed Bianca was weak.

They weren't hostile, of all things. Maybe it came from already sharing N among each other. They loved N and by his orders and their will were here to care for her, and they treated her as his equal, not one of them. One of the Sages had told her "There are not two suns in the sky, and there are not two rulers for the people." It had the sound of an old proverb, but was wrong. There could not be two kings as rivals for one kingdom, but a king and a queen could rule together.

"Anthea, Concordia, why are you helping me? Aren't you in Team Plasma?"

"Our loyalty, our love is to our lord N and N alone. We know his heart, that he wants you to win, but he has been hurt too much and is too strong to let you defeat him without giving it his all."

How did they even think of him: liege or son or brother or lover, or did they even think exclusive 'or's belonged in that statement.

"You have to understand his past. N was not a feral child, not a foundling. Ghetsis raised many orphans very carefully to fit into his plans. The fourteenth one, N, his own son, was the only one to survive. He was kept from people to only bond with Pokémon and to be able to understand them, but not just any Pokémon. Ghetsis gathered Pokémon from abuse centers and those who hated their trainers, those who had been kidnapped from their homes and herds or ignored or betrayed."

"I knew… I suspected some of that."

"N has since been dressed up in brocade and paraded in front of Team Plasma, but as a remote and untouchable ruler. We know N is being manipulated with the truth for ends that are lies. N's heart is pure and innocent. But there is nothing more beautiful and terrifying than innocence."

"This is why we're telling you, bright lady. You do not have the luxury of doubting your suspicions because they were unsubstantiated. You must understand both the pain that would be caused to humans and the pain that Pokémon have suffered, and you must be aware of the conspiracy at work entirely separate from the moral debate."

Sitting in a room of bright lights and pale marble made her eyes water. This can't be happening, but the glare's too strong for it to be a dream.

"We entrust to you the happiness of the one we love."

Touko thought, I don't know if I can be in love with him, let alone a queen, not a mere consort. I'm just a girl with a will and a dream of everyone being happy. Certainly I have strong feelings for him, but as to what those feelings are… Rivals we will be for now because rivals is something I understand, and that's a fight I can win.

Chapter Text

N sat on a golden throne, forcing supplicants to look up to him across acres of carpet in royal purple and tekeleth blue and cloth-of-gold.

But she was no supplicant. She refused to be awed by grandeur. She refused to see N as a king far beyond her level. He was her rival. Let that be the beginning and the end of it.

At the very least, the finery and righteous fury in his burning-hot eyes made it easy to not think of him as a friend, which he'd never been, or a potential boyfriend. A king might have a harem or a queen, but not a girlfriend like an ordinary person.

"With the power of the Dragons, I will create a world without humans, a world of Pokémon and for Pokémon. My dream burns brighter than yours. My conviction will overwhelm yours."

Never one for ceremony no matter how he might be dressed, N ran down to her with his usual clumsiness. "You're here. You've come this far to battle me. But the Stone is still dormant. Are you not worthy then? Have I been wrong? I thought you were the one. The other hero. I thought you were strong and I even liked you. That's disappointing." He shook his head sharply. "But never mind. If you're not worthy then you're not. Fight a hopeless battle or step aside and let me get to it. Come, Dragon!"

The wall behind N's throne collapsed. The Dragon destroyed anything that happened to get in its way, sending stones flying and falling from the ceiling. It was death. Defeat it? The flesh would be stripped from her bones just for standing so close to the sort of power. The stone beneath her feet was melting, boiling.

"Do you think to scare me? Do you think I'll run for my life? I'll show you a hopeless battle! You can kill me, but you will not make me budge! My wish is worth my life!" she shouted and reached for a Pokéball. "It's time to duel!"

Touko's bag suddenly jerked and she grit her teeth as her shoulder stretched the wrong direction until the strap holding the bag shut broke. What in the world...?

"The Stone... it's responding. Touko!"

The Stone floated into the air, having escape her, and glowed brightly. She refused to look away but couldn't stop her dazzled eyes from squinting and blinking at the pain as if staring at the sun. The wind from its spinning whipped her hair into her eyes, blew shards of rock through the air like a sandblaster.

The other Dragon descended, its power burning in her veins.

It roared and the castle shook on its foundation. The world shook on its foundation. She screamed her defiance along with it.

The huge antechamber was filled with fire and lighting and steam from the vaporized moats. Her skin pained her from a thousand tiny shrapnel cuts and burned with sharp heat from every nerve, urging her to move, to go somewhere that didn't hurt. She stood firm. And so she was worthy of this fate.

"Here they are. Zekrom and Reshiram. The duality of darkness and light. The duality of two heroes. Let's fight for the future!"

On the Dragon's back, Touko could block out the burns and shocks, the Dragonsbreaths flying through the air because she could trust it to handle jousting passes. Her part was about her and N.

This dream isn't just mine alone. For Bianca and Cheren. For my mother and the professor. Even for the members of Team Plasma who have grown attached to the Pokémon with them over the course of the Glorious Revolution. For all those Pokémon who have humans they want in their world.

Drayden and Iris had told her that this was a forever war of impasse and stalemate. Two heroes might declare truce, but the war would be started again in another generation. There was no room for compromise and she would admit defeat only when her very soul had burned away into nothing. Too much was at stake. She would have victory.

When you look at me, you see something that makes you regret your dream. When I look at you, I see someone else I want to save.

Touko nudged the Dragon with her mind, gripping its neck as tightly as possible with her knees while trying to get reach. There was a reason the lance was the preferred weapon for fighting from Rapidash- or dragon-back. Passing close to the other Dragon, she struck out with her fist like an uncoiling Ekans with a satisfying impact, then grasped blindly for her mount against the sensation of falling, like the one that would jolt her from dreams.

N was thrown from the back of the Dragon as it bucked and flipped, and she winced as he fell too far, willing his safety. Her Dragon responded to her wish, breaking his fall over its neck and letting him flip the rest of the way to the ground after it banked its wings to drop down. Touko jumped after him and her Dragon rose after the other.

He looked as bad as she probably did, but while his back was going to be black and blue soon, she hadn't heard the crack of bone splintering. "I was beaten. Your conviction was stronger than mine," he said, voice empty of emotion, playing in the dirt of the rubble with one finger. "When I first met you, for the first time I heard a Pokémon that liked a human, who wanted to be with you."

She began to reach out to him when Ghetsis pushed his way between broken pillars and between her and N. "Hm, what a disgrace. Someone as pathetic as you is no son of mine. A failed experiment. A freak among humans or Pokémon."

"N, don't listen to him!" she yelled, seeing him flinch at each word. She'd said as much about him before and the hurt she saw on his face shamed her. People changed. The flames had seared her doubts away. "I love you!"

N shook all over and held stock still. Straw that broke the Camerupt's back, had she just broken him?

"It matters not," Ghetsis continued. "Everyone in the world has seen a miracle. I will be the one to tell them what it was they saw. All I have to do is eliminate you and I will be able to rule a world where I have the only paramilitary force left at my disposal."

Cheren and Alder came after them, her friend still half-supporting the injured Champion. "This was what you were after? Not the liberation of Pokémon?"

"Of course. What sort of fool do you take me for? Pokémon are useful."

"That explains why you were all such hypocrites."

"You dirty-" Alder began, but slumped down, coughing into a sleeve that came away bloody.

"You'll have to go through me."

"Precisely, my dear."

"See, N, this is what you were being manipulated by. This is what polluted your vision."

"Now then, I can't have witnesses. Even better, I can get out of the way at the same time the Champion and the trainer chosen by the mere Pokémon that some call gods."

Ghetsis took a step forward, his robes billowing around him. For the first time, she noticed the family resemblance. She was so glad to not have a father and needed to introduce N to Bianca properly. "Hydreigon! Go!"

The dragon he sent out was dark; not the clean darkness of Zekrom, but that which reeked of corruption and rot, loneliness through solipsism, ambition without empathy, and the will to see the world burn.

"Samurott!"

The Samurott cut through the Hydreigon's heads with unsheathed sword. "Yes! …No!" she cried as two heads regrew on each of the severed necks.

"Attract the Dragons back," Alder called to her. "They'll listen to you two."

"No. To her." N awoke from his inertness. "Touko, use the power of the two combined to make your dream come true."

The Hydreigon opened one of his six mouths and began to sing the song that ends the Earth.

And then there was N, between her and a Dragon Pulse. "Touko!"

She ran. Up to the dais where N's ruined throne had sat. "Zekrom! Reshiram! Hear me if I am the Hero of Unova!"

She felt vague amusement descent around her like a fog, like the lightest touch possible on her mind from a being that could destroy her with an idle thought. What is your will? she heard echo through her bones.

There was no impossible. Reality was hers to remake in her image.

For the longest time, she'd known she would do anything to get to this point but not what she'd say next. Now she knew.

"I wish…"

Chapter Text

On the first day after the end of the world, Touko woke up.

The blanket she and N had been sleeping on in the woods outside the ruins where the castle had been was scratchy. She was relieved to find that they were both full dressed and unless her memory was suppressing deeply nothing had happened in terms of that. It would have been too soon, too young… In fact, her clothes felt stiff and pinched from having been slept in and there was an ache at the back of her head from having slept on the knot of her still-tied ponytail.

N was still asleep. He looked… younger like that, though she had always guessed him to have four, five years on her, despite his man-child mannerisms. Looked shorter, at least, from his usual head-taller-than-her.

She picked up her bag, the dust her Pokéballs had dissolved into already blown away, and her badges were cracked in dozens of places but still in their slots in her carrier, like stained glass she should be framing on a wall or in Burgh's gym. She went to look for her Pokémon.

Samurott was swimming, but Zebstrika and Unfezant were grazing and perched on shore. Simisear she couldn't see anywhere, nor Scrafty.

Screwing up her courage against disappointment, silly as it would be at this point, she announced, "Good morning."

"Good morning."

So it hadn't been her exhaustion causing hallucinations last night. "Hello. Everyone. I'm Touko-"

"Dearie, we know who you are. It's been a while."

"It's just that I couldn't understand you and wanted to ask about you and didn't know how well you could understand me."

"My mother called me Pattern-of-Wisteria-Against-Sky, but you may keep calling me Celena."

"Is that alright?" she asked the Unfezant.

"I just said it was, didn't I? Worrying about names is for males."

"Worrying about names is for birds," Zebstrika shot back, flicking his ears placidly.

"Where are the others? Did they… leave?" Now that they're free.

"The monkey went to look for food. The good-for-nothing punk took it upon herself to go down to the ruins and the League to look for your friends."

"Oh, that's nice. I don't think I have anything to eat." She reached into her bag and eventually returned with a gem between each finger. Reflecting on the strange Rin Tohsaka fetish she seemed to be developing and how glad she was to have not found a magical girl's soul gem to have appeared in her possession in exchange for a wish, she offered them to the Pokémon. Elemental gems were like rock candy to Pokémon, people said. "What do these taste like?"

"Seeds."

"Rocks."

"What were you doing eating rocks?" Celena squawked. "Miltank."

"Woobat."

"I hope she gets back soon." Touko pressed random buttons on her Xtransceiver, but the large crack through it indicated it was very broken. "I wish I knew what was going on. Are there riots in the streets? Are there a lot of Pokémon running back to the wild or taking revenge? What do people think is going on? They're more likely to think Team Plasma won than that this was someone else's wish, that the means of compulsion be broken and the barriers between us fall so that everyone could have the understanding N has."

"There are many old stories about 'How humans became deaf to the speech of Pokémon.' What they all agree on is that the curse was old when Unova was born. So good job."

"I'm going to be either the most reviled or most beloved person in history, if anyone finds out it was me." And not trying to explain it wasn't Team Plasma would be a worse idea, even if she could silence all the witnesses like Ghetsis had tried to.

"Everyone knows who you are, bright lady," a Tranquill she'd never seen before cooed.

"Hist." Celena pecked at the air. "You were not given permission to approach. Leave Her Majesty with us."

"'Her Majesty'?" Touko asked quietly. Listening closely she realized: these woods were jam-packed with Pokémon, all lurking at a respectful distance but watching her.

"We know you, but you must understand what it looks like to others. You are the legendary Hero of Unova; the savior from slavery, among those not as fond of their human as we are; the most powerful trainer and she who can call the power of the Dragons to reshape the face of the world; the mate of N Harmonia, acknowledged king of and friend to the people, all making you the queen."

"Harmonia? Is that another title or his last name?"

"Names." She shrugged her wings, a strangely human gesture.

"I can't believe I don't even know that and we're dating. Technically everyone thinks we're already married. I really do want to make it work, though." She loved N, she'd come to realize and admit, even if they annoyed the heck out of each other as often as not. Still, if she ever wanted to break up, she wasn't going to let anyone else's expectations get in the way. Her mother hadn't married her bio-father even when she got pregnant, and she'd only ever gotten the occasional birthday gift from the guy.

"Do you know where the Legendary Dragons are?"

Touko closed her eyes and it was there, like knowing the direction of the sun by feeling it on her skin. "Yes."

"Can you call them back?"

"I don't know. I don't want to try without good reason. I don't even have a wish anymore, let alone one I want with my whole being, that can change the world. Even if my last, impulsive one just destroyed human civilization, I intend to move slowly and really think through the consequences of my actions before doing anything else."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know. Talk with N, see how much we need to deal with the remnant of Team Plasma in person, find Cheren and Bianca, make sure Mom's okay. What are you going to do?"

"I'm going with you," Zebstrika told her. "Without Pokéballs, you'd better find a flying Pokémon that can carry all of us or get used to even more walking."

"That… never occurred to me. My dreams weren't the most well thought out things in the world." She wondered what Cheren's dad would be doing since she retendered his job obsolete.

"Fortunately, I think you'll find no shortage of Golurk or Salamence who want to be your charioteers. We're staying with you because we're friends and have had good times together, but you must understand we're going to get a huge amount of status from our association with you and you're going to be swarmed with social climbers soon."

"I understand that I'll be dealing with the consequences of my choice for the rest of my life. I just hope not that many other people have to pay the price."

"You don't have a monopoly on responsibility what others choose to do wrongly, and there will be many things that will be deserved. Do not forget that we were denied freedom and voice."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize after what you already did."

"But I am. I listened to N some and I couldn't stand the thought of the status quo any more than I could Team Plasma's world, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with being a good trainer. I took you from your flock and you from your herd, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did, but that was a long time ago. It should not be forgotten, but everyone knew that was how the world worked, and we must move beyond it. There will be those who do not feel that way and are angry. Plenty of them."

She shivered at the thought of Castelia City in flames, which she'd been imagining since she woke up. Was there an option of doing like Alder and running away, maybe living here, in the woods, like a hermit, forever. Even if she eventually got found, maybe she'd look so eccentric and unwashed people would just leave her in her cave and maybe make pilgrimages there, if they insisted.

She couldn't imagine how to be the sort of person that could do that. Then again, she was the girl whose determination had led her to remake the world.

"You woke up and went away."

That was N-speak for 'Good morning.' He had a bruise on his face from where she'd hit him and more from falling and from Ghetsis and his Hydreigon. She didn't regret anything, but felt ashamed of having put even one there anyway, because he might have hospitalized Alder but she didn't want to be like that.

"I had to talk to my Pokémon." My Pokémon. Was that rhetoric politically incorrect and part of the old slavery regime now?

"Good morning, Celena, Sol."

Oh, unlike her they got politeness, did they? Jerk. She shouldn't be surprised he knew their names. She shot out too quickly, "Ghetsis was totally wrong about you being freakish or heartless. You're just undersocialized and kind of autistic and that just happens to some people, and my dream for humans and Pokémon understand each other was because of how much I admire it in you."

"I can't believe you had such bad timing about yelling that you love me."

"As though you have ever had better yourself! You trapped me on a Ferris wheel, kissed me, then confessed to me when I'd just gotten shot out of a cannon while we were vowing to oppose one another."

"That's over."

"The issue of being the hero and summoning the Dragons is over. There's still the rest of our lives. What will either of us think about the world I made? I just wanted people and Pokémon to be together, but with understanding and without coercion."

"I love you."

"You're right: that's really annoying and solves nothing."

"Teach me about being human, in this new world of humans and Pokémon you want to build. There are many Pokémon already. I have the possibility of becoming something potentially useful, someone both Pokémon and human. I'm human-shaped, but don't know humans."

She shook her head, but meant 'yes' not 'no.' "Let's find something to eat, then go down to the League," the queen told the king.

It was the day after the end of the world and the first day of the rest of their lives.